ANARIKSA — Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, has received another complaint regarding his planned Starlink mega-installation project. This time, SpaceX’s satellite broadband competitor Viasat reported it to The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday, May 2, 2022.
According to Viasat, there is growing evidence of the need to conduct an environmental review before approving SpaceX’s plans to add about 30,000 satellites to its Starlink constellation.
“SpaceX should not be allowed to massively expand the Starlink network, while the problem of light pollution in the vicinity of the satellites it deploys has not been resolved to date,” it said.
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Viasat’s Vice President and Deputy Head of Government Affairs, Jarrett Taubman in a letter to the regulator, FCC.
To note, the calls for a thorough environmental review that Viasat made for its December 2020 generation of Starlink satellites were largely rejected. Taubman said SpaceX’s plan to grow the constellation sevenfold would have significant aesthetic, scientific, social and cultural, and health effects on the human environment on Earth.
SpaceX has deployed half of the 4,408 FCC-approved first-generation Starlink satellites to operate at an altitude of about 550 kilometers. SpaceX since last year applied to the FCC for permission for the larger second-generation Starlink constellation. The 2nd gen Starlink will operate at lower altitudes, between 340 and 614 kilometers, to increase its performance.
Viasat and astronomers say operating significantly more satellites, let alone closer to Earth, will exacerbate light pollution by Starlink. In rejecting Viasat’s earlier petition, the FCC urged SpaceX to continue working with astronomers to reduce the brightness of its satellites.
SpaceX replied that it incorporated a shield on the Starlink satellite to prevent sunlight from reflecting. Then, implement other measures with the astronomers to reduce interference. But in Viasat’s latest letter to the FCC, Taubman said these efforts have not completely reduced the light pollution problem of the Starlink constellation.
“There is ample evidence, including analysis by independent experts, of the adverse, sustained, and enhanced impact of Starlink operations in the night sky, despite such efforts,” Taubman said.
The letter refers to an astronomer’s paper published in Nature Astronomy in April, who said there was no technique that Starlink and low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellations could completely avoid the detrimental impact of the science of astronomy. Significantly reducing satellite launches is the only mitigation that can avoid this problem.
Previously, the US Space Agency had also complained about SpaceX’s Starlink problem. In a letter to the FCC on February 8, NASA said SpaceX’s proposed Starlink gen-2 network could double the number of Hubble Space Telescope images containing satellite scribbles. With the current number of Starlinks, 8 percent of all images get that streak. Additionally, more Starlinks would undermine the United States’ ability to detect asteroids and potentially direct them toward Earth.
“NASA predicts that there will be a Starlink in every asteroid survey image taken for planetary defense against a hazardous asteroid impact, reducing the effectiveness of the asteroid survey by rendering some images unusable,” NASA said in a letter signed by Samantha Fonder, NASA representative to the Group. Commercial Space Transportation Space.
SpaceX has not yet responded to Space News asking for their response. In fact, of the 17 Falcon 9 missions this year, 10 have been undertaken to launch Starlink. The next batch of Starlink satellites is scheduled to launch on May 5.
Sumber: Space News
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